Kiss
by pantaloons
Summary: Darkfic oneshot - Non-Deathly Hallows compliant, set after Voldemort's downfall. SS/HG.


My first story! A cheesy darkfic. Can darkfic be cheesy? I think I managed it.

Pants presents, in the realm of Harry Potter fanfiction:

**Kiss**

Rating: PG-13; genre: het darkfic.

Wordcount: 1764

Pairing(s): SS/HG.

*

Hermione shopped carefully in that last week, spending a Saturday afternoon looking for a set of dress robes that were both sombre and lovely. She had not given up hope, not by a long shot, but her innate practicality demanded that she be prepared if the worst was to happen. She did not find anything she could deem appropriate in Madame Malkin's, which was where she had always done her shopping before, so she walked slowly up Diagon Alley, pausing in front of other robiers to consider their wares.

She wandered down a side alley and discovered a small, poky old store whose window-front was dusty. Driven by some indefinable impulse, she went inside. There were many formal robes inside, some ostentatious, some quiet and decorous, but all tasteful. She left eventually with a black set of robes with a dark green trim, and with almost no memory of talking to the shop assistant who had waited on her for over half an hour.

*

Harry stood by his desk in the Auror office. He had a white-knuckled grip on one corner, and there was an infinitely awkward expression on his face.

"But you are doing something, aren't you?" Hermione said - begged. "Please, I know you don't like him -"

"There's nothing to be done, Hermione," he said, obviously trying to be gentle. "Nothing. You know we've tried, you've looked up every angle we could possibly go for yourself. We've tried. The Wizengamot aren't having any of it."

"They won't do anything, Hermione," said Ron gruffly. He was sitting on the next desk along, swinging his feet in the air. He looked far too young for his formal working robes. "They won't change it. And we can't do anything more, or we might lose our jobs."

"Your jobs! Is that - how can you," she cried. Harry turned his face away, so she whirled to glare at Ron instead. "You know it couldn't be helped, you know how much we owe him -"

Ron's face hardened and he looked away. She fought the urge to hex him, or even strike him. She thought dimly that it had been a long time since her Muggle heritage had won through her magical conditioning, which had trained her to do everything with a wand. She looked back at Harry. He retreated behind his desk, still looking fixedly at the carpet. She turned away from her former best friends and stalked out of the office.

*

She spent three days desperately searching wizarding laws and researching precedents. This could not, could not be happening. She compiled a stack of parchment an inch thick and Flooed immediately after to the Ministry.

The guard-wizard looked a little less bored when she charged up to his desk and demanded to be let up to see someone in Magical Law Enforcement.

"Er, do you have an appointment?"

"No. But it is a matter of justice."

He opened his mouth to object, and she continued, "Tell them it is Hermione Granger."

At least her war-won respect was good for something, she thought irritably as she tapped her foot impatiently in the lift.

She alighted on the second floor and made immediately for the Department Head's office. She scarcely noticed the heads turning as she marched through the rows of cubicles and straight into the office without bothering to knock.

There were three Aurors in there with Mr. - Mr. - What was his name again? They'd been through so many Auror heads. His round face was familiar but his name eluded her, so she simply addressed him, "Sir. Can I have a moment?"

"Er. Miss Granger..."

She pulled on her coldest, most formidable expression. He deflated.

"...Yes, a moment, that's fine. Just a minute, gentlemen."

One man said worriedly, "Auror Savage..." _That's right, Simon Savage._ Savage twitched his fingers at the man and he left behind the others, looking backward. Hermione sniffed impatiently. The door shut, closing the office in a thick silence.

"I've come to speak with you about the case of Severus Snape," she said into that silence. "I have here a good number of logical demonstrations that show his sentencing is a gross miscarriage of justice."

She produced her research and slapped it on his neat desk. A couple of scrolls, displaced by the resultant breeze, toppled onto the floor.

"Miss Granger – I really don't think –"

"You don't think what? That you should release an innocent man?"

He looked a little alarmed. She brushed a hank of hair out of her face irritably. The slaved-over stack of parchment continued to take up an offensive amount of space on the desk. Savage touched it gingerly.

"I see, Miss Granger. I can certainly assign some personnel to look into this."

"You can?" For a moment, she was dizzy with relief. Then she saw the pity on his face – the little flash of guilt. The coldness in her chest was clarifying. "You must, Mr Savage. I don't want to impugn your division, but I will doubt its integrity if you cannot see the truths right in front of you." She caught his eyes and tried to stare sense into him.

"I will see to it personally," he said, looking down and giving a short nod as he shifted the stack to the side of his desk.

"That is certainly a relief," she said woodenly. "I will come by tomorrow to see –"

"Oh no, Miss Granger – we will – I will make sure that you are sent word. Tomorrow." He tried to be soothing but succeeding only in appearing uneasy. "You should get home, and calm – and get some rest." He pressed a packet of Floo powder into her hands and ushered her to the office's fireplace with unseemly haste.

*

She sat in her rooms in Greyhaven and stared through her reflection in the kitchen window. She saw only Severus, Severus snorting, Severus brewing, Severus saving her life. Severus lecturing and sneering and the look on his face after she had kissed him the first time. Her fingers jerkily shredded the edge of the apologetic letter, signed quite personally _Regrets, Simon Savage._

She didn't even really think about it as she prepared an illegal portkey _(he had shown her how to do that)_ and then owled a visiting request to Azkaban.

*

In that last visit, Severus shouted at her. He would, of course, the bastard.

"What in Merlin's name are you doing here, woman?" he roared. "Get out, and leave me alone."

Hermione fought the impulse to tell him how childish he sounded, then glided across the room with a grace she had learned from him. She settled herself in the chair across from the one he was trying to strangle and said, "No."

He looked even grimmer than he had the night he'd faced the Order for the first time after killing Dumbledore.

"I can get you out of here, Severus," she said. He looked up at her sharply. "I have a portkey -"

"No," he said. He strode across to her and shook her roughly by the shoulders. "No, Hermione. I will not allow you to ruin your life. I will not be part of it."

"How can you say that?" she whispered. "Please -"

His face contorted, then settled in a contemptuous sneer. "You stupid little witch," he hissed, releasing her shoulders. "What use is a life on the run to either of us?"

She looked up at him hopelessly. He turned, to stalk off to the other side of the room, where he would bang on the door and call for the guards. She caught his hand swiftly, pulled him back towards her. "No," she whispered.

He stood stiffly for a beat, then hooked the other chair over with his foot and sat beside her. He allowed her to hold his hand for perhaps ten minutes before wrenching it away and snarling at her to leave.

*

Severus was led out onto a stage in the centre of Azkaban Prison by a pair of burly Aurors, who did their best to hide the fact that they had to steady him every other step because his knees kept wobbling. They tipped him onto a chair primed with a sticking charm. He felt the charm grip his thick prison-issue trousers and the back of his striped shirt, and tried not to shake.

His guards moved away and he could see the small sea of faces before the platform, all turned up to him. His eyes passed over the sneers, the fear, the fever-bright eyes and the morbidly fascinated, until he found her seated in the front row.

He had not known whether she would come, and he did not know whether he was agitated or glad. She had certainly turned out for him. She was wearing robes that almost looked like widow's weeds, with green insets and cuffs, and she had tamed that mass of hair into a twisting river over her shoulders. She was glorious.

Someone was off to the side of him now, parroting vainglorious words from a roll of parchment, and he ignored them steadfastly in the interest of not embarrassing himself. Instead he looked at her too-smooth face.

He had been so desperate he had almost agreed to the portkey, though rationally he knew there was only an extremely slim chance they could escape their pursuers, and a zero percent chance they could stay free for longer than a few months. The new laws were too harsh. He could not bring himself to, looking into her face; because she did not deserve that, and because he did deserve this.

Not even she knew everything he'd done in the war. He had not been tried for it all, but he certainly remembered his crimes. The ones he had committed in his fist years of service to the dark were bad enough, but even after he'd sworn service to the 'light', he had had to go out on the Dark Lord's errands, again and again and _again_ -

He could not fathom how she could forgive him. And his last memory was of shouting at her. But here she was, looking utterly magnificent and ignoring everyone else around her. He could feel the chill deepening, now, but he was caught up in her face. There were tears in her eyes, making them brilliant, and as the shadow fell over him, she smiled at him. It was soft and sad but so, so sweet, her face. She had never looked lovelier.

He closed his eyes and tried to savour that image of her face as the Dementor's cold fingers tilted his face up to meet its own.


End file.
